Beginner help!

[Goblin]

hey guys,
im completely new to all this programming stuff(with visual basic) and it would  be GREAT if you could send me some beginner tips and guidelines. ive taken computer science in school but they only taught me Turing and it sucked. So i just wanna forget about all that turing bull and learn how to use a better programming tool such as VB6 or c++.
I am especially interested in learning how to make bnet bots, so if u could help me out with that i would be extremely thankful!
goblin

[Eternal]

* Eternal notices the viewing count for this post but lack of replies  

Goblin, perhaps the best form of advice you could get for a general programming issue like this is to get a book, try some of the online tutorials and certainly don't start with trying to program/understand how bnet bots work. If you have specific programming questions along the way, there are plenty of people on this forum to help.

Start with some tutorials on the basics and learn all the ingredients needed that would perhaps go into a more advance program, such as coding a bot.

Hope it helps, and good luck.

[EDIT: One last thing, VB6 is easier to pick up if you have no programming experience, but the more experienced programmers here try to avoid it and prefer other languages such as C++ - learn to walk first before you run]

[Goblin]

At the moment, im looking around for books already, but as for online tutorials, i cant find any good ones that'll help me.
if you know of a good site, it would be great if you could tell me.
thanks!
goblin

[DarkVirus]

Are you learning VB .Net or 6.0? First off, establish a book to get. If you are interested in VB6.0, than again as I always do, www.johnsmiley.com  look for his VB 6.0 set. I've got all 4 books and they were great I think. I'd suggest learning VB.Net though opposed to 6.0, because a lot of what you learn in 6.0 might work but might not work in .Net.  IE: Currently I'm unable to finish a program I'm doing an update to in .Net because I originally created this program, which is based off an access database, in DAO (Data Access Objects) and .Net doesn't support DAO without some SERIOUS changes. ADO.Net is the new way to go, but I've yet learned how to work with it. Also a lot of key components, such as Control Arrays, no longer exist in .Net but there are alternative methods, such as Collections etc..

So Id suggest finding a good book and reading it. Mind you the worst way to get help is to say you want to make a b.net bot because if you want to learn to program simply for that, save yourself the time and effort and just use someone elses. If your really want to learn, then get a book as stated multiple times and learn from the beginning and don't even ask yet how to make a bot.

[j0k3r]

OOT or the black Turing? Turing (as opposed to what I originally thought) is alot better than I thought, I mastered turing (I can do anything internally with it now) in one year... And now I can sleep through this year's computer science lessons and I'm learning how to manipulate circuits with turing now (computer engineering). If you weren't using OOT then I'd recommend that you learn that fully (f10 or f11 is the help file with a list of ALL commands) and then move on to something more practical (I'd much rather have learned jscript over VB...).

Where do you live? The last I know Turing wasn't offered anywhere besides Toronto/Ontario.

[Goblin]

eternal,
so should i go with c++ considering that i might not like VB6 anymore in the future?
another question; to learn c++ would i need any background with VB?
i just need to know which language i should use before i go out n spend like...$100 on a book.
thanks
goblin

[j0k3r]

No, you do not need to know VB to learn C++. They are seperate languages, and any programming language (like turing) will help you learn it. If you are dedicated to learning a useful language and are willing to spend a lot of time, C++ is probably your best choice. Otherwise VB can pretty much do the same stuff and doesn't require as much theory.

Do a search on this forum for differences between VB and C++, I remember reading quite a few threads on it, then decide which one suits you best.

[Eternal]

jok3r's right Goblin. Personally <confession time> I don't have the time to learn C++, so I've become proficient with VB. It is also easier to learn if you have no programming experience. It really does depend on how dedicated you are and of course how easy you can pick things up. Everyone will tell you C++ is a better language and I won't argue with that.

[EDIT] Grrr, typo spotted about three hours later.

[Tuberload]

One question I have is, how could anyone not have the time to learn C++? By looking at my watch I see that I have, hmmm, let's say a possible 80+ more years to live. If you could only spend an hour a day reading, and then applying what you read you could learn the language. You don't have to spend hours upon hours to learn a language. Just learn it's syntax/structure, and read up on important libraries and such. From there just refer to some sort of C++ manual when ever you run into a problem. Time is the only way you can master anything, and thank god most of us have plenty of it.

BTW this post was not meant to offend anyone.

[hismajesty]

www.vbtutor.net www.vbexplorer.com

[Eternal]

No offence taken. I just find it hard to juggle a wife, 7 month old baby, running a company and a starcraft clan!
Still, it's all good fun.

One day I'll try it. Maybe it's not as hard as I think?

[DarkVirus]

One question I have is, how could anyone not have the time to learn C++? By looking at my watch I see that I have, hmmm, let's say a possible 80+ more years to live. If you could only spend an hour a day reading, and then applying what you read you could learn the language. You don't have to spend hours upon hours to learn a language. Just learn it's syntax/structure, and read up on important libraries and such. From there just refer to some sort of C++ manual when ever you run into a problem. Time is the only way you can master anything, and thank god most of us have plenty of it.

BTW this post was not meant to offend anyone.

I'm sorry but that was a pretty stupid post. If you take the time to just learn the syntax and structure of a language and can't apply any common sense as to how it works or any theory behind it, then why bother learning the language? If you write a simple line such as  Textbox.Text = "Hello world" or cout << "Hello World\n"; and don't understand what the stream operator means or the purpose of assigning information to a property of a certain object, then you won't get very far in my opinion.

Take the various differences between Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual Basic .Net in terms of omiting the use of Control Arrays, a very touchy subject that I've learned to ease up on sinse I've learned the new method to be a lot more efficient than its predecessor. If you write VB6.0 code such as:

Code Select Expand


Dim i as integer
   For i = 0 To 4
      txtTextBox(i).Text = ""
   Next i

If you learned this code and understood it to be looping through the control array and clearing each textbox's text property, then wouldn't the beginning programmer ask the theory or something like that about the use of index's with control arrays? How do they work? Whats the purpose behind having such a technique?

What about switching to the new Collection technique in Vb.net?

Code Select Expand


Dim ctrl As Control
   For Each ctrl In Controls
       If TypeOf ctrl Is CheckBox Then
           Dim chkCheckBox As chkBox= CType(ctrl, CheckBox)

               If chkCheckBox.Checked Then
                   Msgbox("You've clicked a checkbox!")
               End If
       End If
   Next ctrl

How could you simply take this syntax and understand how collections work? How could you learn the structure of how it works without asking other questions?

Unless I've been mistaken in the intent of your post, I find your reason behind not exploring anything beyond the simple structure of syntax to be of no use to helping a person learn a language from a beginners standpoint.

[Tuberload]

No offence taken. I just find it hard to juggle a wife, 7 month old baby, running a company and a starcraft clan!
Still, it's all good fun.

One day I'll try it. Maybe it's not as hard as I think?

Well I guess you have a point there. Drop the starcraft clan and use that time to learn C++. I personally don't think learning a programming language is to hard. It just takes practice.

DarkVirus: I think you did misinterpret the meaning of my post. What I was getting at is once you learn the syntax of a language it is fairly strait forward from their to build upon your knowledge of the language.

If you could only spend an hour a day reading, and then applying what you read you could learn the language.

Wouldn't that cover pretty much cover everything you stated? I am sorry if I didn't break down the obvious for everyone. I was just trying to get the point across that if you want to learn a language it does not necessarily have to take up your whole day.

[Adron]

If you could only spend an hour a day reading, and then applying what you read you could learn the language.

Wouldn't that cover pretty much cover everything you stated? I am sorry if I didn't break down the obvious for everyone. I was just trying to get the point across that if you want to learn a language it does not necessarily have to take up your whole day.

One hour a day is pretty much. Most busy people won't be able to spend that much time.

[Eternal]

* Eternal falls into that category.

Hmm, anyone tried reading during sleep?